Thursday, June 14, 2012

The case for milkmen

People aren't eating so healthy
these days, and fresh local milk is a good for you.

Raw milk products are experiencing
a surge in popularity.

Locally grown and produced goods
are huge.

Everything vintage is hip again.
Hipsters would love a bottle
of milk delivered to their door by a guy on a bicycle. So would most everyone else.

Glass bottles aren't just
recyclable, they're reusable, which is even more environmentally
friendly.

People have less time, and are
willing to pay for the convenience of delivery.

Small dairy farms are going under.

Small dairy farms are key to
working landscapes and vibrant communities.

Having fresh local milk show up on
your doorstep is awesome!

When I was 24, I lived in an old
schoolhouse on a mountaintop in Vermont. It was the most idyllic
place I've ever lived – and I've lived in a lot of places. The
350-acre patchwork of fields and forest was scattered with cabins and
outbuildings, and each was rented out by some unique, hardy soul. Ann
baked bread and kept chickens. Oliver worked at a cheese farm.
Brigham kept bees, Brooke blew glass, Grace had a huge garden, Andy
fixed things, Laura made pottery and John hayed and split wood. And
then there was Lucy – Lucy worked at an organic dairy farm, waking
up at 5 a.m. each morning to milk cows in all kinds of weather. She
came home smelling like cows, her Carhartts filthy, fingertips raw,
cheeks ruddy. She was a Smith College graduate who was well-read and
super smart, but while her job was grueling, something about it
satisfied her soul.

Living at the old schoolhouse I
benefited from the labors of all my neighbors. Honey, eggs and bread
made their way to my door regularly. But the thing I enjoyed most was
the fresh raw milk that Lucy brought home in glass jugs.

Later, after several years away, I
moved back to Vermont and lived in a huge house in a rough-ish
neighborhood in an old industrial town. It was not the bucolic,
pastoral Vermont I remembered, but I grew to love it there too. One
of my housemates, Karen, worked part time at a dairy farm and, once
again, I found myself privy to the wonderful secret of milk delivered
right to your kitchen. Every Monday, Karen would bring home a gallon
jar of raw milk and leave it in the refrigerator for everyone to
share. And again, I had fresh bread delivered to my kitchen as well. On Sundays, our neighbor Birdie would bake loaves of sweet white
bread and leave a steaming loaf on our
countertop. Slathered with honey with a glass of cold milk to wash it
down, it was heaven on earth.

I started thinking about milkmen. Anyone who grew up in the era of milkmen will tell
you, with more than a trace of nostalgia, how wonderful it was to
wake up in the morning and have jars of milk with the cream still
floating on top waiting on their doorstep. In some parts of the U.K.,
this is still common. In America, it's a thing of the past.

Many of the Norman Rockwell-esque
features of bygone America wouldn't work well in today's fast paced culture. But
milkmen, I think, can and should make a comeback. Can't you see it?
Farms flourishing outside New York City, truckloads of fresh milk
trucked into central locations each day, and delivery boys and men
(and girls and women) loading the glass bottles into milkcrates
mounted on their bicycles and maneuvering through early morning
traffic (or up country roads) to bring it to restaurants, homes and businesses. We get our
newspapers delivered, and our mail... why not our milk? It would
stimulate the local economy, help struggling dairy farmers and
develop a strong farm-to-table link while enhancing the convenience
and freshness that consumers value.

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About Me

I'm Krista. I write stories about the intersection of people, places and nature. Formally, I'm a contributor at High Country News, a non-profit environmental news magazine once called "a scrappy institution that produces some of the finest journalism in the American West." My work has also been published in Slate, Orion, Alaska magazine, New Zealand Wilderness magazine, the Denver Post, Adventure Journal, and a number of other newspapers and websites. See more at www.kristaleelanglois.com.